Maybe this will be the last one before Christmas. Both Barb and I have definitely lost any desire to live in larger cities or even larger communities. I guess living on the boat and the wonderful solitude or at least minimal contact with our fellow people except when we want to has stamped us. Can’t stand the traffic. Can’t stand the rude drivers. Can’t stand the noise. Grumble. Grumble. Sigh.

That being said we had a very productive visit to the Warden of the North. First and foremost I was able to get a really great deal on a trailer hitch cargo rack that, as I mentioned in a previous post, I plan to use to carry the portable generator and the gas for it outside the MoHo so there won’t be any fumes wafting up into the cabin as we sleep. We also got a steam cleaner that we will be able to use in the house and on the boat. We have found that in both places no matter how clean you think that you have everything if you get the right tool you can always get up more dirt. I am really looking forward to using it in the cabins aboard Nelleke. Poor old kitty that we had aboard for the first two years of cruising shed and tracked kitty litter everywhere and it got ground down into every crack and crevasse. We also picked up a few more Christmas gifts as well as getting a bulb planter as a pre Christmas gift for Barb. She has her heart set on planting some crocus, tulips, daffodils etc to be up in the spring. Her knees are really bothering her these days so any tool that we can get to facilitate something that she really wants to do is a no brainer as far as I am concerned. Finally, although Barb did her own secret shopping that I can’t know about, we also went back to dear old Nelleke and did the final few things to get her put to bed. There was a lump in my throat as we drove away, but, I keep reminding myself, May is only five months away…..

The experimentation with the Tom Tom that I was discussing last post has born fruit. We have charted, or should I say mapped, old habits die hard, to Ottawa by way of Saint John and Kingston complete with a couple of stops in the states, the first in Boston and the second a little further along just south of the Thousand Island Bridge near Ogdensburg. While playing at it I also, just for grins and giggles, put in a trip to Colorado to see what would be involved to visit our friends that live there. I particularly wanted to see what states we would visit on the way through. One of the attractions in getting the MoHo was that we would be able to do the “cruising” thing away from the water and this sort of trip is a great example of being able to do that.